“God grant that not only love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth so that a philosopher may set foot anywhere on its surface and say, this is my country!” Benjamin Franklin was one of the great thinkers of his time and had a tremendous influence on the birth of America. His quote above entertained a vision that freedom could so take root in the world that anyone could go anywhere without feeling threatened or persecuted.

Franklin’s point was that the blessings of freedom, if it was the standard everywhere, would make each region a welcome place where people could prosper according to their own efforts and live in harmony with fellow residents.

The implications of that vision carry over to the present day. Immigration is a divisive and contentious matter. Many sincere Americans feel that immigrants to the United States are a burden on the present citizens and a drain on the economy. The reality is, however, that people who work for a living and produce more than they consume are a net benefit to any society. My grandfather and grandmother were immigrants to this country in the early 1900’s, and came here with next to nothing, as did the forebears of most of us living in America today. They worked and struggled and made a living without handouts. They toiled through the great depression, with my father quitting high school to help put food on the table. Their immigration was not a burden because they took responsibility and built their own lives however they could.

The real issue is not immigration. The more fundamental contemporary difficulty is the socialized political landscape that rewards the unproductive at the expense of the productive. The welfare state is at the core of the divisiveness and anger. Immigrants coming to this country and getting free services at the expense of everyone else is a tremendous problem, but it is no more of a problem than our own citizens getting free benefits at the expense of everyone else. This country is dangerously following the footsteps of the pathetic, stagnant, big brother economies of European social democracies, and we are paying the price in lost freedom and forfeited competitiveness.

Compassion is very important, and people in prosperous, free societies have the capacity to be compassionate. People in oppressed, poverty stricken societies do not have the capacity to be charitable because they are too busy surviving.

The modern, one world, global government view is the antithesis of Franklin’s vision. In his perspective, geography didn’t matter, because freedom meant limited government and a maximum of voluntary cooperation. Where people are free and responsible for their own welfare, it doesn’t matter where the borders are, because all people are neighbors. The modern globalist perspective is the other end of the spectrum. With an all powerful global government, national sovereignty is dissolved and people are forced to do the bidding of world governors. It has nothing to do with freedom. When there is no competition to hold government in check, there is monopoly of power and ultimate dictatorship.

This was recognized even hundreds of years ago. The founders of this country tried to build in checks and balances to prevent the monopoly of power, but that careful framework is being slowly, but surely dismantled. Not only is dangerous power being concentrated at the federal level, but many of our leaders are working to forfeit national sovereignty, subjecting Americans to un-elected global bureaucrats who have no interest in anything as prosaic as individual liberty.

Immigration has been a great strength of our past. It has become a weakness, and will remain a weakness until the welfare state is overthrown. When that happens, we can live in that happy state of affairs where people are free to fail and be hungry, happy because that hunger is the impetus to get off one’s backside, to become productive and successful. My country, our country, America, can once again become a beacon of freedom in an un-free world. When our own people are held responsible for their own lives, their own prosperity, and their own welfare, we can again say to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" We can again be a place where anyone can say “This is my country.”